


the art of murder

by poise



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Blood, Choking, Guilt, Horror, M/M, Proceed with caution, Self-Indulgent, Sleep Paralysis, a lot of blood, accidentally !!!! kinda?, fluff at the end, heavy on gore and a little disturbing, renjun and jaemin killed someone, renjun has a nightmare, set in the 80's, this is a sequel, very gory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-08
Updated: 2020-06-08
Packaged: 2021-03-01 18:42:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,562
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23771770
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/poise/pseuds/poise
Summary: no matter how far he runs, renjun learns that the past will always haunt him.a sequel to new flesh
Relationships: Huang Ren Jun/Na Jaemin
Comments: 7
Kudos: 50





	the art of murder

**Author's Note:**

> hello!! before anything, i'd like to stress how disturbing this fic might be so if you're queasy or just can't read anything that mentions blood constantly, maybe don't read this one. stay safe !!! 
> 
> also this is a sequel to one of my other ao3 fics ^__^ called [new flesh](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23494825) it's really short so please read that one too! for those who already read that, this one is much more gruesome

His vision blurs and his hand is damp but it doesn’t feel anything like water. It was thick, like someone had just dipped his hand in motor oil, slippery and slick against his skin as he hears it drip large drops onto the floor. Wherever he was, it was pitch black. The only thing that suggested he was in a room was the sound of his own ragged breath bouncing off the walls and the cold floors pressed against his feet. Renjun breathes in a shaky breath when a pungent smell hits him in the face. It lingers in the air, a scent so familiar he couldn’t forget. It invades the deepest depths of his thoughts and on quiet days, he would smell it lingering on his skin. Guilt.

Guilt and the distinct tang of blood. He rubs his fingers together and feels it lather on his hands. It was  _ on  _ him. It didn’t matter if the roughness of his jeans stung against his hands, Renjun rubbed them feverishly against each other. He just needed it off him. But with every wipe against his shirt, his jeans, he would feel the dampness return merely seconds later. Like it was seeping out of him. But this blood was not his, no. His blood was fresh, warm, alive. This smelt rotten and cold. Filled with so much hatred, it was thick as tar. 

Renjun squeezes his eyes shut and chants to every God he could think of. None of which he believed in but he begged for it to stop. The feeling of blood caking under his fingernails, seeping out of his skin fast enough that it had started dripping onto the floor. He could feel the large puddles that formed at his feet. Something holds him in place as soon as he tries running. There was no one else in the room and that much he knows but he feels the weight of a thousand men on his shoulders, hands grabbing at his feet like shackles. 

“Please,” he pleads into the void. Nothing answers but a flicker of light in the distance and he soon realizes that the room was much larger than he thought. The darkness made it look as if it could stretch for miles on end. There, under the flickering light, stands a figure with his back hunched over. His face is blurred from the distance but Renjun takes a chance, shrieking in his direction.The figure seems to notice as they lift their head up slowly. Dread fills Renjun’s lungs when he meets their piercing gaze. A face Renjun is all too familiar with, one that haunts him in his sleep and lingers at the back of his mind during the day. He remembered what it looked like against the beige carpet, horrified and bleeding out. 

He also remembers what it looked like when they finally buried him in the middle of the woods with his body completely drained of blood and pale skin against the dirt and pine trees. They had closed his eyes back then before filling the grave but Renjun could swear after each scoop of dirt against his shovel, he felt the boy’s eyes on him. Jaemin reassured him that it was just the guilt eating him alive but Renjun’s never seen someone look so pale, so blatantly dead. The grave is left without a headstone, for obvious reasons and Renjun settles with learning his name instead, engraving it into his mind.  _ Choi Woosung.  _

He seems to be at a loss of words, completely paralyzed by the boy’s stare. With every blink, he looms closer with his eyes never once leaving Renjun’s. Renjun wants to let out a sob, kick and scream. Anything to get him as far away as possible. He wants to close his eyes and look away but he just can’t. There's something nauseating about it, like a force prying his eyelids open and it burns so much that they start to tremble. It isn’t until the boy was merely an arms reach away does Renjun let out a shaky breath. He smelled horrible. Like rotten flesh and wet skin. His eyes were hollow but Renjun could see the pain in them. The pain he caused. 

He forces a voice out, hoarse and scratchy against his dry throat. “I’m sorry.” he whispers. The word holds so much weight. He was sorry for it all. 

Woosung, more accurately his corpse, doesn’t say anything and dead silence fills the air as Renjun holds his breath. A grin then stretches obscenely along the corpse’s dead skin, like he wanted the smile to seem sincere but his muscles were no longer working. Despite the horrifying demeanor, Renjun finds himself returning the small smile, hoping it would comfort or bring an end to this. 

His stomach falls at the low whisper he receives. “No.” And with a small push against his shoulder as if he was light as a feather, Renjun falls backwards and expects his head to crack wide open with the collision against the cold concrete floor behind him. Instead he falls into a body of warm water, shallow enough for him to still see the figure looming above him but deep enough that water fills his lungs. He lunges forward, hacking it out but struggles when a weight presses against his whole body. It pushes him down deeper, deeper and blurs his vision until he realizes - water doesn’t taste like this. Water doesn’t feel thick against your skin and salty on your tongue. Red fills his vision and it quickly sinks in,  _ this  _ was blood. Hot and thick, down his throat. 

Panic arises in him as he struggles, gurgling incoherently under the copious amounts of blood filling his mouth, his nose, his lungs. This wasn’t real and Renjun knew that - it couldn’t be. But every fibre in his body is screaming for it to end and Renjun follows suit. Shrieking hard and loud enough that his chest burned as he squeezed his eyes shut. He couldn’t escape this. It was the constant guilt that finally caught up to him. Even when he and Jaemin left their little town, kept on driving and never turned back - the past will always haunt him.

His shallow breaths are all he hears when he slowly pries his eyes back open. He feels the bed sheets beneath him, itchy but familiar and his eyes dart around the room until he realizes where he was. Jaemin was sound asleep beside him with an arm draped around his waist and from the corner of his eyes, Renjun could see the rise and fall of his chest. There’s another presence in the room, lingering at the edge of the bed. He wants to reach out to Jaemin but a weight still presses against him, paralyzing his whole body. Every muscle stays frozen and all Renjun could do was weep in his state. Tears pooling in his eyes and rolling down the side of his temple, he was exhausted.

“Renjun?” Jaemin asks hoarsely, lifting his head from his pillow to properly look at him through squinted eyes. Concern paints his features. “You’re trembling.” he whispers and props himself up on his elbows. Renjun doesn’t respond, numbness filling up his whole body. All he does is look at Jaemin through wet lashes and pleading eyes, silently begging him to soothe the pain. 

Jaemin understands almost immediately, burying his hand into Renjun’s damp locks to brush away the strands sticking to his sweaty forehead. He tries not to add more weight onto Renjun’s muscles, delicately stroking his arms and bare waist - treating him as if he was made of glass. He buries his head in the crook of his neck to whisper reassuring words, anything to stop him from shaking. 

Minutes go by like hours until Renjun is finally able to let out a choked sob, hands immediately reaching to wrap around Jaemin. He’s trembling harder this time. So much harder than Jaemin’s ever seen and he lets him soak his shirt with salty tears and muffled wails. He sits patiently with somber eyes as he rubs circles onto Renjun’s back, feeling the ragged rises and falls of his chest when they’re pressed flush against each other. 

“You’re okay, I’m okay.” Jaemin repeats like a chant into his ear. “I’m right here.” He reassures. 

It bothers him how hard Renjun is gripping onto the back of his shirt but he knows now isn’t the time to ask. “Why don’t you try going back to sleep?” 

Renjun shakes his head against his chest, clearly still shaken up. Jaemin tries again, softer this time. “I’ll stay awake okay? I’ll wake you up if it happens again. I’m going to be right here, I won’t let anything happen to you.”

He knows Renjun trusts him, that he would trust him with anything. Slowly, the grip on his shirt loosens and Renjun pulls back just a little bit, enough for Jaemin to see the tear tracks down his cheeks and temples. He wants to reach out and wipe them clean but Renjun was different. If he needed to be taken care of, he’d ask and right now he needed time, and sleep. So Jaemin lets him pull away but still keeps him close enough to watch, finally finding comfort in the way Renjun’s chest rises and falls in rhythm. 

**Author's Note:**

> thoughts !!!
> 
> [cc](https://curiouscat.me/813na)  
> [twt](https://mobile.twitter.com/rensfilms)


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